The US military
has drawn up detailed plans to secure and protect Iraq's oilfields to
prevent a repeat of 1991 when President Saddam set Kuwait's wells ablaze.

The US state department and Pentagon disclosed the preparations during
a meeting in Washington before Christmas with members of the Iraqi
opposition parties.

Iraq has the second biggest known oil reserves in the world producing,
in their current run-down state, about 1.5m barrels a day. But experts
contacted by the Guardian predict this could rise to 6m barrels a day
within five years with the right investment and control.

At the meeting, on the future of a post-Saddam Iraq - details of which
have been disclosed to the Guardian - the state department stressed that
protection of the oilfields was "issue number one".

One of those at the meeting said the military claimed that a plan to
protect the multibillion oil wells was "already in place", hinting that
special forces will secure key installations at the start of any ground
campaign.

As well as immediate concern about the environmental impact of having
hundreds of Iraqi wells on fire, US, British, Russian, French and other
international oil companies are already taking soundings about Iraq's
multibillion pound oil supply.

The companies are reluctant to mention oil in public, fearing it will
feed Arab suspicion that it is the main factor in the confrontation with
Iraq.

Yet, with war looming, discussions in private have inevitably begun on
the future of the world's second biggest oil reserves.

The US and British governments deny that oil is a factor in the
confrontation with Iraq.

The Foreign Office minister, Mike O'Brien, said yesterday: "The charge
that our motive is greed - to control Iraq's oil supply - is nonsense,
pure and simple. It is not about greed: it is about fear [about the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction]."

The US secretary of state, Colin Powell, told the Boston Globe
yesterday: "If there is a conflict with Iraq, the leader ship of the
coalition [will] take control of Iraq. The oil of Iraq belongs to the
Iraqi people. Whatever form of custodianship there is ... it will be held
for and used for the people of Iraq. It will not be exploited for the
United States' own purpose."

Asked whether US companies would operate the oilfields, Mr Powell said:
"I don't have an answer to that question. If we are the occupying power,
it will be held for the benefit of the Iraqi people and it will be
operated for the benefit of the Iraqi people."

There is a debate within the US administration over whether some of
Iraq's oil revenues might be used to cover part of the costs of
occupation, which is expected to last 18 months.

The office of the vice-president, Dick Cheney, and some officials at
the Pentagon have reportedly advocated commandeering revenues from the
oilfields to pay for the daily costs of the occupation force until a
democratic government can be installed. The state and justice departments,
meanwhile, have insisted that the money be held in trust.

"There are two competing needs here: the budgetary need for forces
which will be extraordinary, and the need to get it up and running and
show the Iraqi people some real results and some real improvement in
life," said Andrew Krepinevich, a Pentagon adviser, whose organisation,
the Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, carried out a study of
the issue for the Pentagon.

The relationship between the oil industry and the US administration,
from the president, George Bush, downwards, is the closest in American
history.

The Wall Street Journal last week quoted oil industry officials saying
that the Bush administration is eager to rehabilitate the Iraqi oil
industry.

According to the officials, Mr Cheney's staff held a meeting in October
with Exxon Mobil Corporation, ChevronTexaco Corporation, ConcocoPhilips,
Halliburton, but both the US administration and the companies deny it.

The BP chief executive, Lord Browne, said last year he was putting
pressure on Mr Bush and Tony Blair not to allow a carve-up.

A Foreign Office source confirmed that the security of Iraq's oilfields
was of paramount concern.

"That is something that is being assessed across Whitehall," said the
source. "But whether or not the Iraqis manning the wells will blow their
future livelihood upon an order from Baghdad remains another issue. A lot
of that will be about getting there first. The importance of preventing an
environmental catastrophe is right up there."